


Chinks

by Huggle



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mind Control, Possession, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-01-10 02:50:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce becomes the target of a plot to break the Avengers, which leads to some dangerous situations and a team in need of reassurance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on Avenger Kink (http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/17613.html?thread=39859917#t39859917)

It’d been a quiet couple of days since the giant worm tried to take a bite out of the big apple.

Clint felt like he’d taken root on the sofa in the common room, but the effort of hobbling back and forth from his room just seemed pointless. And while he knew Thor’s offer to carry him until he was back on his feet was made out of genuine consideration – despite Tony’s reaction, which had been to step outside until he got a hold of himself and then apologise for not offering to carry Clint himself – he could definitely live without the humiliation.

Being carried when you were unconscious and everyone thought you were dead was one thing. 

It was not happening when he was alive, awake and able to endure the total embarrassment.

He heard Bruce before he saw him, and twisted around enough to see the physicist come in.

“You and Tony started early in the lab?” he asked. “Or finished late?” It wasn’t unknown for either of them to forget that sleep was kind of vital. Given the things Clint imagined they were up to down there, he’d personally be a lot happier if they made sure to get a minimum eight hours and avoid dropping anything radioactive or creating a black hole because somebody put the decimal point in the wrong place.

Bruce didn’t reply.

Clint frowned, a little. Since he’d been let out of the infirmary, and into the care of the team with strict instructions to rest at the Tower, Bruce had been Clint’s sanity preserver. Tony and Steve had fussed over him in ways that he had not expected, did appreciate, but was quickly freaked out by. Natasha was still away, or she would have told them in her own sweet way to knock it off.

Bruce had been the only one not to treat Clint like he was four, or had come very close to dying. Even though he had. He’d made sure Clint knew which meds to take and when, told him to call when he needed anything he couldn’t get for himself, and other than that had left him alone.

Right now, he looked like he was the one needing some care taking.

“Bruce?”

Again, there was no answer. Bruce walked past Clint, and into the kitchen. He didn’t go to the fridge. Instead, he opened the cupboard and took out a bottle of bleach.

Clint watched him, a little confused. He was pretty sure that any mess they’d made in the lab wouldn’t be safe to be cleaned up with something they could buy at Wal-Mart. 

Still, Bruce was opening the bottle, and looking around like there was something he’d missed.

“Cloths are in the left drawer,” Clint offered.

Bruce made in the other direction, towards the sink and the draining board. He picked up a glass and turned back towards the counter.

Pain shoved aside in an instant, Clint moved.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce has some explaining to do - if Tony can be persuaded to listen.

“This is what you get walking around barefoot,” Tony chided him.

Clint glared at him, but he knew when Tony was working his way up to his own personal version of panic. It was either going to be over him or over Bruce, and right now Bruce had enough to cope with. He was sitting on the settee opposite, Thor to one side of him and Steve to the other.

Clint watched him, carefully. “Sure the big guy’s not going to show up?”

Bruce was gingerly wiping his face with a damp cloth – his skin was still pinkish in places where drops of bleach had spattered. “I think he’d have made an appearance by now if he was, and yes, that is odd.”

Odd, Clint thought. Only Bruce could think of what just happened as _odd_.

He winced a little as Tony removed another piece of glass from his foot.

“That looks like it,” he said. “Now we get to the fun part.” He frowned apologetically and held up some antiseptic and a dressing.

Once that was done, Tony settled down next to him, and Clint felt him building up to the inevitable shitstorm.

“Bruce,” he started, hoping if he got in there first it would stall Tony, maybe settle him, but he barely got a chance.

“Little hurt,” Tony said. “I mean, really? Actually, lots hurt. Being with us, being here, sucks so bad you had to resort to trying to drink bleach? Your life before was so much better?”

“Tony,” Steve chided. He turned around to face Bruce. “He has a point, though. What happened?”

Bruce started to reply, but Tony launched himself into another frenzy of jabs and hurt feelings. “If it’s the room, or the lab, I could fix that. Is it Ross? Has he had people hanging around again?”

Clint knew it wasn’t that – the last time he’d caught one of the general’s people standing all innocently across the street from The Tower, Clint had taken him aside and had a brief conversation with him. The non verbal kind, which left him – and hopefully, Ross – in no doubt that any harassment of Bruce would be taken very personally.

“Maybe if you let him actually say something,” Clint said, “he’ll tell you.”

Bruce gave him a look part gratitude, part shame, but he took the invitation. “I am happy here,” he said, but his voice was heavy with frustration. “I can’t believe you’d think I’m not.”

“Given your choice of liquid refreshment, you can’t blame me for considering it.” Tony pouted a little, but then he had just found out one of his friends had tried to kill himself by ingesting bleach, so Clint figured he was justified.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

Tony’s eyes widened to the point where it looked like they might actually pop out of his head. Before that could happen, Steve rested a hand over Bruce’s. “If you weren’t, then what happened?”

“That’s what I can’t tell you – I don’t really know.” Bruce gave a shrug. He looked at each of them, desperate to be believed. “All I know is that after I left your workshop, Tony, I had to come down here and I had to end it. I don’t even know why.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the ridiculous time between updates - the story still isn't finished and I'll be honest that I'm not sure where it's going to go. Guess we'll find out together!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony adopts preventative measures where Bruce is concerned, and Rhodey picks the wrong time to visit - or maybe the right one...

“A suicide watch,” Bruce said. He stood in his room, staring at Rhodey, who stared impassively back. “I keep telling them I didn’t try to kill myself.”

“Whatever we call it,” Rhodey said. “Does it matter? They all got a scare, you look like you did too. Hell, doc, I don’t know if you did or you didn’t, but they want to make sure you stay safe. Is that so bad?”

Bruce sat down on the bed. Tony had barred him from the lab, the workshops, the kitchen. When it became clear he was considering house arrest as the next step, Bruce had waspishly pointed out he could - if he had a mind to, which he didn’t – use the bed clothes to hang himself from a door or possibly try to smother himself with a pillow.

He wasn’t quite sure how Tony thought he’d be comfortable with a bare mattress to sleep on, but he had definitely crashed in worse places.

With a sigh, Bruce sat down on the bed and motioned for Rhodey to take a seat. “Aren’t you sorry you picked today to come by? I guess they’ll still scouring the Tower.”

Rhodey nodded. “Thor and Steve are doing a floor by floor search; Barton’s helping Tony review all of JARVIS’ security footage and readings. So far, nothing, but that’s just so far. And any day around here promises to be crazy. Did you mean it?”

Bruce looked at him.

“What you said, about being happy here? Lord knows, Tony’s a handful. Stubborn, wilful, wild-”

“You forgot handsome, generous, resourceful, looks spectacular in a suit.”

Bruce sighed. 

“Has no concept of personal privacy,” Rhodey continued, as he raised one hand to the ceiling and extended his middle finger.

“You’re part of a fascist organisation that forces people to take communal showers and share spartan dormitories with total strangers who probably piss in each other’s mouth wash as a joke. Surely any concept of personal privacy has been driven out of you by now.”

The door to Bruce’s room opened, and instead of debating with Rhodey over the PA system, Tony was there doing it in person.

“Done?” Rhodey asked. 

“Not even close,” Tony said. “I’ve left Clint watching the readouts with strict instructions not to actually _touch_ anything.”

“He’s flown combat helos and helped test SHIELD prototype APCs,” Rhodey said.

“I’m pretty sure Clint isn’t going to break anything up there,” Bruce added.

Tony stared at them like they’d lost their sanity somewhere and he was going to have to go look for that as well. “Toaster. Peanut butter. That’s all I’m saying. He’s still barred from putting hands on anything that uses electricity until he’s at least sixty.”

Rhodey looked back at Bruce, but it was harder to have a conversation with the child in the room. He settled back in the seat, and then Tony sat down next to Bruce.

“If there was anything to cause this, we’ll find it through JARVIS or our two jocks doing a floor by floor search.”

“If. Maybe we should arrange an MRI just in case the cause isn’t external. Or a psychiatrist.”

Tony tutted him. “I can’t think of anybody I’d inflict you on.”

“I don’t know,” Bruce said. “I’d probably ease them in, start by telling them how my supposed friend took all my bedding.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint has to consider all the possibilities.

Clint stared at the security footage JARVIS was helping him scroll through, and the various sensor readings that accompanied it. Some of them he could follow: ambient temperature, activation of the pressure pads used on some floors as an additional security measure, even a recording system that picked up the most subtle of sounds like a whisper or even a heartbeat.

He’d had an idea that Tony was very security conscious – given the things Tony had here at the Tower, that was a sensible thing and given the shit he’d been through it wasn’t a surprising thing, either – but he had ideas here that SHIELD could take note of.

Despite it all, though, someone or something had managed to either get into the Tower to take a shot at Bruce – metaphorically speaking – or had reached in from outside.

Clint ran through the possibilities in his head as the footage ran on, the readings scrolled past, and still there was nothing out of the ordinary.

It couldn’t be anything in the food or the water. Bruce rarely left the Tower, and JARVIS would have alerted them to anything suspect. SHIELD had nabbed a guy once who’d been using sound waves at various frequencies to introduce aberrant behavioural patterns in people, but it hadn’t been something he’d been able to control, and he was locked up now anyway.

Again, JARVIS would have picked up on anything like that, and shut it right down if it was activated anywhere within the building.

It couldn’t be a contaminant in the air for the same reason, and because they would all have been trying to opt out, not just Bruce. 

As far as Clint could see, that left only two possibilities. One was some kind of telepathy or mental nudge. The other was that Bruce really had tried to kill himself, and was now in total denial.

Clint had seen people who seemed fine and then had jumped off a bridge. He’d seen people who seemed fine and then had their hands around his throat five seconds later. Seeming fine was not always a good indicator of being fine.

He was kind of glad that Tony had gone downstairs to sit with Bruce and Rhodes. Up here, he’d sat and festered over the possibility that it was a suicide attempt, and if it had been, that would mean Tony had failed Bruce, had let him down.

None of this he’d actually said out loud, but Clint could read him like a book. 

He stared at the screen, knowing it was crazy but actually wishing there was someone who’d snuck in past the Tower’s defences and somehow encouraged Bruce to try and kill himself. That would be the easiest solution, because no matter how careful that person was, there would be some trace. They could find them and stop them.

If it was someone who’d attacked Bruce mentally, Clint had no idea how far away they were or how they could possibly track them down. 

Or stop them from trying it again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Thor start a floor by floor search of the Tower - and it doesn't take them long to find something.

There were a lot of floors in The Tower – and a lot of rooms per floor which by Steve’s reckoning meant a thorough person by person search would take the better part of a day. The only upside was that as they finished a floor, JARVIS put it into lockdown which meant they didn’t have to worry about any suspect doubling back on them.

Of course, if they believed an intruder was to blame it meant someone had managed to sneak past JARVIS anyway. While Steve would readily admit The Tower was like something out of a science fiction novel to him, he had enough experience of Stark’s computer by now to know that was very unlikely.

He and Thor met up again in the corridor by the elevator, and Steve saw that the Asgardian looked as frustrated as he felt.

“There are many creatures on Asgard capable of taking away a man’s will,” he said.

Steve didn’t want to bring Loki into the conversation, but he didn’t want Thor mentioning him around Clint either. “But your father, Heimdall – they’d warn you if anything slipped through?”

Thor seemed to bristle. “Heimdall guards The Bridge. Nothing would slip through.”

Steve called the elevator. They stepped inside, and as the doors closed, JARVIS turned off the lights in the corridor, section by section, and sealed off the floor.

They rode down to the next level in silence. Steve was starting to wonder if maybe Bruce had tried to kill himself. It had to remain a possibility until they could completely discount it, no matter how unpleasant the thought. It didn’t help that Stark was taking it so personally – making the doctor’s issues his own.

Certainly, Steve had hoped after the battle with the Chitauri, he and Stark would have got on a little better. He couldn’t deny the engineer’s courage. Or his resourcefulness. But Steve found him abrasive, child-like. There was no real harm in him, but maybe this was always going to be as well as they got on. He could deal with that if so. 

They didn’t have to be friends to be colleagues, although it would have helped.

When the lift doors opened at the next floor, the lights were already off.

Puzzled, Steve looked up at the floor display, in case he’d sent them up a level instead of down. But it read eighteen. 

“JARVIS?” 

“There appears to be a malfunction in the environmental controls for this section, Captain,” JARVIS replied.

Thor had holstered Mjolnir. Now he slid it loose, hefted it in his hand. Steve raised his shield. 

Maybe it was just that something had broken down here. A power failure and nothing more than that.

Or maybe their elusive quarry was still in the building, and had decided the dark was a very good place to hide.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint runs into trouble.

As he was lying on the floor, with some guy who could have been separated from Thor at birth sitting on his stomach and pinning his hands against his chest, Clint realised General Ross was a thieving bastard.

“You know,” he grated out, because it was getting hard to breathe with the giant crushing his middle, “Stark and Fury probably have patents on those things.”

The woman standing over the security monitors didn’t even look down at him. “They can sue me.” She had slid a small flash drive into one of the ports, and whatever it was doing Clint didn’t know, but it had prevented JARVIS from realising he was under attack.

Just like the suits the intruders were wearing had fooled the security system completely. Clint didn’t know if Ross had hacked Tony’s servers, or SHIELD’s, but somehow he’d got the design for them. Clint had helped Tony and Fury test them only three months before, and successfully breached some very high level security at three very secretive government locations.

The suits – mirrors was how Fury had described them – were able to fool surveillance and security systems by making it seem like the person wearing them simply wasn’t there. Surveillance cameras? No problem. The suit projected what the camera would pick up if there wasn’t anybody there. The same went for the most common electronic security measures.

Only actual eye contact could reveal them.

“Where’s Three’s location?” the giant said.

The woman removed the flash drive. She sat down in front of the monitor, typed a command on the virtual keyboard that flared to life in front of her, and seemed satisfied.

“Eighteenth floor. She’s about to engage Rogers and the alien.”

Clint tensed in the giant’s grip, and the man grinned down at him. “Wriggle all you want, little worm. Won’t help any.” Over his shoulder, he said, “This isn’t about them.”

She looked down at Clint and gave a shrug. “It isn’t about him, either. But we’re probably going to have to kill them all if we want to get to Banner. Why couldn’t you have just let him drink the bleach?”

If it was Natasha, she’d have had their life histories by now. That was her thing. All he could do was ask.

“Why can’t Ross leave him the fuck alone?”

“Because he’s dangerous,” she said. “Oh, you’re all very cosy here, Agent Barton. You might think he makes a good pet, but like any animal he’ll turn on you eventually.”

“You can tell me - did you get bitten by your dog when you were a kid?” That earned him a tight squeeze around the wrists, and Clint felt his bones grind under the pressure.

“Get him on his feet. We need to separate Banner from the other two which means a distraction.”

Clint was hauled upright by the giant, and wasn’t surprised when his ankle failed to take his weight. “Oh, look. Guess I’ll have to stay here.”

The woman shook her head. “Two, just carry him.”

Two held him so Clint’s back was against the bigger man’s chest. The woman – One, he supposed – produced cable ties and secured them tightly around Clint’s wrists while Two made sure he stayed still. Then he threw Clint over his shoulder and followed One out of the door.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhodey realises they're under attack. For real.

Rhodey was the one who noticed it first. He guessed maybe it was because Bruce was still trying to persuade Tony that he had not tried to kill himself – Rhodey believed him. And Tony was being Tony and trying to figure out how/when/where he’d let Bruce down and what it would take to fix him.

It was barely even a flicker, but somebody used to the odd things that can trigger migraines in their best friend was hyper alert for potential causes. When the AC made a very brief fuzzy sound a second later, Rhodey stepped into the argument.

“Two things,” he told them. “One, Tony, if you get Bruce any more worked up, it won’t be him you’re arguing with anymore. Second thing – something’s wrong with JARVIS.”

Tony stood up, and stared at the ceiling. “J? Everything ok?”

JARVIS did answer but it took a moment longer than usual. “Sir, I think I’ve suffered a systems breach. I can’t explain it, but Agent Barton is no longer in the security room. And we have a lighting failure on floor eighteen. Where Captain Rogers and Thor have possibly located Dr. Banner’s assailant.”

“I’m not going to point out,” Bruce said, “that even JARVIS knows I didn’t try to poison myself. Do you know where Clint is?”

If it hadn’t been the AI, Rhodey would have thought that JARVIS was hesitating. “He appears to be levitating towards the elevators.”

They said nothing for a moment, but it was Bruce who finally spoke. “Man of many talents.” His skin was starting to tinge green.

“Hold that thought,” Rhodey said, and patted his shoulder. Until they knew what they were dealing with here, Hulk might be more of a hindrance than a help. “Tony, I think we should suit up.”

“Which means getting to the roof, that’s the closest assembly unit,” Tony said. “Which probably means passing by the Incredible Floating Barton. And whatever’s actually making him float. JARVIS, can you raise Steve and Thor?”

“Floor to floor comms are down, sir.”

Tony cursed under his breath. “I’m really getting tired of people showing up at my home and breaking my stuff.”

“I think Thor and Steve can handle whoever’s on eighteen,” Rhodey said. “That leaves us to go get Clint and the suits.”

Bruce seemed a little calmer, but Rhodey wasn’t fooled. He could see Hulk just under Banner’s skin, a threat, a blow, a second away from joining the party.

“Then maybe we should do that before someone comes to get us.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve runs into an unexpected, horrific, situation. This is where the Choose Not To Warn bit comes in, dear readers.

There were emergency stations located throughout every floor in the Tower. Steve had memorised them – in a city that had been terrorised by mechanised creatures, giant worms and adopted brothers with jealousy issues there was no telling what the next thing would be.

He opened the cabinet at the nearest station and took out two portable radios and two large torches. All four functioned – independent of JARVIS, they had escaped whatever was affecting the AI’s systems.

Steve handed one of each to Thor and quickly explained how they worked. “Unless anybody else has one, we’ll only be able to communicate with each other.”

After he and Thor had stepped out of the elevator, JARVIS had gone silent and the lift door had slid shut behind them. It had refused to open. Either of them could easily have pried them open, but it seemed premature. They’d encountered no problems on the other floors – so Steve had a hunch this was where they would bump into the person or persons responsible for their current difficulties.

He didn’t expect them to step out and come quietly.

With the torchlight beams casting ahead through the darkness, they reached the first junction off the main corridor. Left and right, and two of them. Much as Steven knew splitting up might make it easier for their quarry, a direct action like cutting the power and disabling JARVIS was an escalation from simply running and hiding. They were being drawn in, occupied. 

It was time to stop this.

“Check in every two minutes,” Steve said.

Thor nodded. “Be wary,” he advised and then went right. Steve watched him go, and started down the corridor to the left. There were only two doorways opening off the passage; both storage rooms, both filled top to bottom with study crates though what was in them Steve couldn’t say. None were big enough to conceal someone.

At the end of the corridor, he was about to take another turn when he heard someone yelling to him. It sounded like Clint.

He spun around, wandering what Clint was doing down here, and tried to figure out where exactly he was. It wasn’t like Clint couldn’t look after himself, but he was hurt and Steve didn’t want him exposed to any more risk than could be avoided.

“Clint,” he called out. “Are you alright?”

He cast the light a little further down the corridor, and started when it fell upon the still form on the floor. Even from here, there was no mistaking the dark hair, the hoodie Clint had changed into after wrestling the glass of bleach away from Bruce.

Steve ran to him and dropped to his knees. He put the torch down where the light covered the archer.

“Clint,” he said, again. He touched his shoulder gently, received a groan in response. Hesitant, he decided he had to turn him over. Like this, there were too open to attack, and he needed to know what was wrong.

Steve moved Clint as carefully as he could, turning him and supporting him until he could lie him flat again.

Blood stained Clint’s lips. He was holding his midsection and his entire body was shaking.

“What happened?” Steve asked. He grabbed the radio, flipped the talk switch, hoped that by now Stark or Bruce or Rhodey had thought to take the emergency radios and turn them on. “Don’t move.”

Clint made a sound that could have been a gasp or a choked laugh. “Little late,” he said. His voice was hoarse, like he was forcing it out. “Got hit.”

Steve tried to pry Clint’s arms away, but the movement drew an agonised cry from him. He held up his hands in apology. “Shot?”

Clint drew in a breath. It rattled noisily in his throat and more blood speckled his chin. Steve felt something leaden form in his chest. He pushed Clint’s hair back from his face, rested a hand on Clint’s shoulder.

“Hit,” Clint said again. “Watch out for him.”

The tension was bleeding out of Clint’s body. Each breath came slower, a little shallower, and Steve tried to hail the men on the upper floor but there was nothing. Thor might be down here with him, but surely Bruce could tell him what to do, what first aid he could provide.

He went to try Thor next, when Clint’s arms fell to his sides. Steve lowered the radio. One of Clint’s ribs was poking out, a white curved shaft of bone glistening with blood. Even with little training, Steve could see the damage was catastrophic. It was an impact injury. Something very hard and very solid had hit Clint at speed, rupturing him. His hoodie was soaking with blood.

Clint hadn’t taken another breath.

Steve hefted him up quickly, shook him, but Clint’s head lolled back. His eyes were open, fixed.

For a moment he could only kneel there, staring down at him. 

_Hit. Watch out for him_.

He heard a heavy footfall, and turned to see Thor come around the corner. 

“You didn’t answer the radio,” Thor said, and then stopped. “Is something wrong?”

Steve lowered Clint carefully to the floor. He straightened up, eyes fixed on the Asgardian.

“Like you don’t know,” he said, and sent the shield arcing through the air towards him.


End file.
